Hard problems become easier by working through them with diagrams, effort and patienceIn other words, don't just wait for answers to come to you--go out and find them. Don't just use what's in your head--use paper, or the computer, or a whiteboard, todraw out the ideas, try experiments, make the patternsvisiblerather than waiting for a flash of insight.I remember really learning this lesson during the first problem set--I'd started it when it was handed out, but the night before it was due I still had one problem left. I spent hours on that problem, but I spent it drawing out equations, working through possibilities. Each one ended in failure, until I had a flash of insight in the middle of writing out an equation. If I hadn't worked through (and discarded) all those possibilities, I'd have had no hope of solving that problem.So how do you apply this principle in practice?Program Program ProgramIf you're learning to program, you should be programming. Workp...